


Responsibilities

by Philosophizes



Series: Bad Decisions Series Backstory Fics [6]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Adults, Children, F/M, Humans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-20
Updated: 2012-12-20
Packaged: 2017-11-21 15:30:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/599369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Philosophizes/pseuds/Philosophizes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lithuania hosts a Christmas gathering for his extended family; and politics both personal and international plague the day.</p><p>Prequel to 'Starting Over'</p>
            </blockquote>





	Responsibilities

Lithuania looked up at his closed door as he heard footsteps running down the hall.

“ _Ak Dievs, Ak Dievs, Ak Dievs- Viņš ir šeit, **viņi** šeit _ -”

 _Latvia’s worked himself up about something again,_ he thought, and went back to his paperwork.

There was an absurdly large amount of it for it being barely three days until Christmas. He was supposed to be on vacation, but he knew better than to expect that sort of thing by now. Crises happened when crises happened, and there didn’t seem to be anything anyone could ever do about it.

 _Wait-_ ‘viņi šeit’ _?_

He abandoned his paperwork and slammed his door open, dashing down the corridor to the entrance hall of his mansion.

“Why didn’t you _tell_ me Tasha was here?” he demanded, briefly noticing that Montenegro –when had _she_ gotten here? Had Latvia invited his lover for Christmas without telling him or had he just forgotten?- was clutching at Raivis’s shoulders and shaking him slightly, trying to snap him out of whatever had started him trembling _this_ time.

“Raivis, _breathe!_ ” she commanded.“ _Jedan, dva, tri!_ It’s _okay!_ ”

“She- They just- _Ivan_ -” he replied weakly; and Toris noticed his little brother’s tie draped over a potted plant. He snatched it up and strode over.

“Whose house is this? _Mine,_ ” he said. “You forgot your tie.”

“ _Paldies_ ,” Raivis muttered, and started fumbling with the length of cloth, trying to use his dim reflection in a nearby window for help. 

* * *

 

Lithuania sighed and ran his hand distractedly through his hair, then jumped slightly in surprise when he noticed Russia’s American wife standing by the door.

“Oh! Uh, Abigail, you’re in here already-”

He stopped. There was a strange woman standing next to her, looking slightly shocked and overwhelmed.

“-Who’s _that?_ ”

The woman stared at him for a moment, and seemed to be trying to collect her thoughts.

“I-I’m Mæja,” she stuttered. “I came with Pavel-”

“She’s your son’s girlfriend, Toris,” Abby interrupted her.

Toris’s eyes went wide and he stared, blinking a few times.

 _He’s-_ What? _When did_ this _happen? Why didn’t he tell-_

 _-of_ course _. Roz._

“Pavel never told me he was dating,” he said eventually.

 “Well, he didn’t tell _me_ there’d this many people here, Mr. Laurinaitis,” she told him. Mæja seemed a little nervous, and he wasn’t sure why, and he made a mental note to make her feel more at ease later. There were more pressing problems at hand.

“Really?” Toris asked, wishing he didn’t sound so distracted and stressed. He just wasn’t ready for his guests yet, and now he had _two_ unexpected visitors to accommodate, and _why hasn’t Belarus come in yet, I haven’t seen her in_ months _-_

“I thought I brought him up better than that. I’m sure I did.”

Had he forgotten anything else? Anyone who was supposed to be there and wasn’t?

“Raivis, is Eduard-”

“He and Timo are spending the week at Ráfi’s,” Raivis told him, pulling the knot of his tie tight. “Does this look okay?”

“That looks wonderful,” Montenegro assured him. “But why Lappland? I was sure that Eduard spent Christmas with you and Timo with Berwald, except for when he delivers the presents.”

Toris figured he’d get one of his questions answered immediately.

“Senka, when did you-”

“My flight from Podgorica just got in half an hour ago.”

Lithuania suddenly realized that the ends of his hair were brushing annoyingly against his lips, and he rooted around in the pocket of his pants for a tie and pulled his hair back. Poland always complimented him when he did that, he said it made him look like _‘a totally fabulous ass-kicking knight and not, like, Russia’s_ secretary _’-_

“ _Feliks!_ Is Feliks-”

“Prague, with his siblings,” Raivis said. “Your suit jacket isn’t on properly.”

He fumbled with the button on his coat.

“And you didn’t button your shirt up properly before you put your tie on. Did we invite Cristoforo this year-”

“No,” his brother said as he struggled with the knot he’d just finished tying.

Toris smoothed the front of his suit down and realized _oh no, I haven’t covered the whole family yet-_

“ _Gilbert_ isn’t coming, is he?”

“You know he likes Christmas in Germany too much to come over,” Abigail said. “He’ll be half-drunk or _pretending_ to be drunk until his brother manages to drink the rest of the beer. Or until he can get some of _us_ to drink it, since he’s hosting this year. Here, Mæja, let me take your bags.”

Mæja handed them over with a dazed look.

Toris sympathized. Sometimes it was hard dealing with Nations; and last minute preparation wasn’t good for anyone.

“We’re going to Germany?” she finally asked. “No one told _me_ that."

_Apparently Pavel has been very lax with his responsibilities. I’ll have to have a word with him._

* * *

 

As it turned out, Lithuania had no time to talk to his son before dinner, which he helped Kateryna and Natalya make.

He stood as close as he could to Natalya, who was busy hacking a slice of beef into small bits, while he shredded some carrots.

“How has your house been lately?” he asked his ex-wife.

“Fine. Too much snow.”

There was a series of continuous dull noises ( _thunk thunk thunk thunk thunk_ ) as she attacked the meat in a way that Toris _knew_ meant something was wrong.

“And your boss? I heard he was sick-”

“Good.”

_Thunk thunk thunk thunk_

“Is he still-”

“I hope he dies. Last dictator in Europe, and _I_ must be the one to deal with him.”

He paused in his shredding.

“Is he really that sick?”

_Thunk thunk thunk_

“No. Shame. Should be.”

"What about you, Lithuania?” Ukraine asked from her position in front of the stove, supervising the simmering broth that would have ingredients added soon.

“Paperwork. Paperwork _everywhere._ There was a middle management crisis in the salary department that screwed up everyone’s holiday budgets and now _I_ have to spend all my free time signing off on back-pay dockets for my boss’s underlings-”

Belarus screamed.

* * *

 

Kateryna dropped the ladle she’d been using to stir up the broth and it clattered loudly against the metal top of the stove while Toris flung his arms around Natalya, who had collapsed against him, and started inspecting her bloody hands.

“Tasha, Tasha, _meilė_ , did you cut yourself with-”

Her older sister dropped to her knees in front of them and seized her hands, looking at the red-soaked palms with something approaching terror.

Lithuania realized that there were no cuts on her skin. Belarus’s blood was seeping out from her pores.

This was a _Nation_ thing.

“Tasha,” he said urgently, eyes wide. “Are you being-”

“ _S-S-Sestra_ ,” Ukraine said, voice wavering and tears pooling in her eyes. “I-Is it the Union State again?”

“Brother,” Belarus whispered. “I wanted Brother, people kept taking him and hurting him and we were never together-”

Toris pulled her against his body. She was shaking.

_No-_

“-we got married, we got married, Alexei let us get _married,_ I married Brother, I have Brother now and I’m never leaving him _they can’t make me_ -”

“Sestra, Sestra, you’re-”

“ _Njama!_ ” Natalya shrieked, struggling against Lithuania’s hold. “ _Njama, you CAN’T MAKE ME_ -”

Belarus was, Toris realized with a sick feeling, much thinner and weaker than she should be, and from this close he could see how her hair had started to go a bit brittle and she was sweating slightly and her eyes weren’t as sharp as they had been last year-

-and Russia was there, suddenly, wrapping his arms around the three of them.

* * *

 

Natalya sobbed and clutched at the front of his coat, leaving bloody patches on his scarf. Kateryna reached up and stroked her younger siblings’ hair.

“Bela was screaming,” Ivan said quietly, the vibrations of his deep voice in his chest reaching them all. “Why is Little Sister screaming?”

“You’re _killing_ her,” Toris whispered in horror. “You, the Union State, it’s too _much-_ ”

For the first time in a long time, such a long time that Toris could barely remember it, Ivan looked pained.

He started to stand.

“ _Njama!_ ” Belarus wailed. “ _Brother, Brother, Brother we’re married_ we’re finally _married_ don’t _leave me_ Brother-”

Russia froze.

“-I’m becoming one with Brother,” Natalya sobbed, looking up at him. “Brother _always_ asks for people to become one with him, why did you run _away_ for so _long_ Brother, I’m _here_ now, I’m _with_ you, I’m not _leaving,_ they can’t _make me, Brother,_ I won’t _ever_ leave you alone like all the others because I’m _becoming one_ _with Brother_ , why is Brother trying to _leave,_ don’t I make you _happy-_ ”

Her voice cracked and broke.

Ivan let go of Kateryna and Toris and picked up his little sister.

“ _Shhhhhhhhh,_ ” he said. “Little Sister always makes me happy, because you care so much, _da?_ I know Little Sister won’t leave me-”

Ukraine sobbed, once.

Lithuania couldn’t think.

This was _not_ happening, he’d finally gotten Tasha after waiting and suffering through all these years, and they had _children,_ children of their own _bodies,_ and _now_ she was saying-

“-one with Brother one with Brother one with Brother one with Brother,” Belarus chanted to herself as her blood soaked into the fabric of Russia’s coat and scarf.

“One with Mother Russia, _da_ ,” Ivan agreed quietly, and walked out of the kitchen.

Kateryna swayed to her feet and pulled a towel off the stove handle, mopping up the scarlet staining Toris’s white tile floor.

* * *

 

Ukraine had finished the dinner by herself, and it was now laid out on the table and it smelled wonderful, but Lithuania was in no mood to appreciate it.

Pavel and Ivan’s little Anatoli were seated next to him, with Abigail and Ivan on the far side of their son, by the foot of the table. Mæja, stuck between Montenegro and Ukraine on the other side, still had that dazed, distracted look on her face, but now he could sense an undercurrent of something that felt suspiciously like nerves under it.

He wondered if she’d heard the screaming.

Raivis and Senka were seated immediately to his other side, and Raivis was alternating between glaring in terror at Ivan and glancing in confusion at Toris, clearly begging for an explanation about the screaming Lithuania knew that he, at least, had heard earlier, but he couldn’t talk about it yet.

Natalya was sitting at the foot of the table itself, directly opposite from him, her older siblings on either side- but Toris couldn’t stop staring at the spotless white gloves that he knew were covering bandages and

 _God, the love of my life is_ dying _and I can’t do a_ thing _about it and she didn’t_ tell _me._

There was the sound of a door opening.

* * *

 

“Hey, Liet!”

Lithuania threw his napkin down on the table and stood up so hard that his chair _screech_ ed across the wood floor.

“Raivis, you said Feliks was in _Prague!_ ” he snapped.

Damn you, _Poland, I don’t want to see your face right now, not when Tasha is_ dying _and the Commonwealth was where I fell in love with her-_

“He was! He _was!_ ” Latvia protested, cowering slightly under his older brother’s expression of contained rage. “Barbora _told_ me he was!”

“Ah, but that means little, _da_?” Ivan said, gracing the company with one of his pseudo-smiles, perfected over centuries of practice of having to live pretending to like what his governments were doing. “He travels so fast!”

Toris was fighting down his temper when Feliks flounced into the room in one of his infamous pink ensembles, this one embroidered with red cornflowers and poppies.

“C’mon, Liet, you didn’t answer the door for me!” he pouted.

 _Pouted._ While Lithuania’s life was starting to crumble-

 _Fuck_ you _,_ _can’t you tell when you’re_ not wanted _?_

“We’re having a family dinner here, Feliks,” he finally managed to say, without completely losing it.

Poland looked around the table critically.

“It doesn’t, like, look very ‘family’ to me. You _totally_ forgot Eduard!”

“He’s in Lappland,” Toris forced out.

“Really? But it’s like, freakin’ _freezing_ there. Literally.”

“ _Da_! It is much like Siberia!” Russia replied.

Lithuania was envious. _His_ façade was _effortless_ -

Feliks stuck his tongue out.

“You like, _totally_ need to shut up now, _ty_ _Rosjanin wieprz_.”

“Feliks!” Raivis exclaimed, voice rising an octave or two.

 _He had_ better _not start shaking again-_

“What?”

“Why I am to be offended by being called a pig?” Ivan asked.

 _How the_ hell _could he look so_ innocent _?_

“I like pig. It tastes good. Nice bacon.”

“Pffff, you are _totally_ no fun to insult.”

Lithuania glared, and cracked a bit.

“You shouldn’t be insulting anyone in the _first_ place, Poland!”

“Though they do smell, I suppose,” Ivan continued thoughtfully.

 _Damn him, damn him_ too _and his acting abilities-_

“ _Ljubimyj_ , do I smell?”

“Of course not, sweetie,” Abigail assured him.

 _Does she know? Does she_ know _what her precious husband is doing to my Tasha, to his own_ sister _?_

“Though the vodka lingers something terrible. You know how many times I had to wash your clothes when I got to Moscow to make your closet stop smelling like a hospital ward?”

“Poland?” Mæja whispered to herself.

Feliks looked over at her.

“Hey, Liet, what’s one of Iceland’s kids doing in your house?”

“That’s Pavel’s girlfriend, Feliks,” Toris snapped.

 _Keep your temper, keep your temper, keep your_ temper _-_

“Look, I’m glad you came over-”

 _Get the fucking_ hell _out of my house before I beat that look off your face!_

“-but we’re in _the middle of dinner_ -”

“Poland,” Mæja said louder.

“Aren’t I _fabulous?_ ” he asked, smiling brightly.

_SMILING-_

But the smile faded before Toris could _completely_ lose it, and Poland’s attention shifted to his friend’s son.

“Paweł, you did, like, _tell_ her about us, right?”

* * *

 

Pavel opened his mouth, closed it, and then looked at the table.

“ _Pavel-_ ” Toris said warningly. He was _dangerously_ close-

His son muttered something.

“ _What_ was that?”

“I thought _Zell_ told her, all right?” he burst out, his head jerking up. “Mæja’s been rooming with her since she showed up late to school and it’s not like Zell’s _subtle_ or anything!”

“You should have _checked_ , Pavel,” Lithuania snapped. “That’s the _responsible_ thing to do-”

Pavel sank down into his chair a little.

“Maybe I don’t _want_ to be responsible,” he muttered.

Toris lost it.

* * *

 

“You _always_ have to be responsible, Pavel!”

He found he didn’t care that he was half-shouting already, or that Latvia had jumped slightly and that Ukraine looked like she was on the verge of tears again or that Poland was staring in utter confusion or that Russia was just looking at him with the _saddest_ expression on his face-

“You have to think through your actions and consider all the possibilities because your actions have actual _consequences!_ Every single thing you do should be planned because you have a _duty_ to the people around you to not make their lives _harder_ than they already _are-_ ”

“Stop talking like my life _means_ something at this point!” Pavel interrupted him. “It’s not like I’m creating foreign policy or something! _Some_ people in this family don’t have a country to take care of-”

 _Your life means_ everything _-_

“But you will someday, that’s what you’re going to University for-”

“For the last _time_ , _Tėvas_ , I’m _not_ going to become a politician for you!”

“T-Toris,” Latvia stuttered. “Y-You never told me you wanted Pavel to become a politician-”

“You have all the necessary skills!” Lithuania told his son for what had to be the fifteenth time. “And you’re _good_ with what you have! You can make speeches and friends with almost no effort-”

“That doesn’t mean I’m going to let _you_ order me around!”

“ _Ó minn Guð_ , my roommate really _did_ run across two lanes of city traffic to tackle the Swiss Confederation,” Mæja whispered cryptically.

* * *

 

“If you can do something _well,_ and make the world a better place, then you have a _duty_ -”

 “I have a duty to _myself,_ to live my own life-”

“There haven’t enough people with decent virtues in positions of power! Pavel, you’re honest and committed and trustworthy, unlike _some_ people-”

_RUSSIA-!_

Pavel shot up out of his chair.

“Roz is _completely_ trustworthy!”

Toris inhaled sharply.

_Rozete-_

“I didn’t mention your sister-”

“No, but you were _thinking_ it! Don’t deny it, _Tėvas_ , you were going to turn this into something about her getting _married_ again-”

_-let’s get marriedmarriedmarriedmarriedmarried-_

“Yes, because that’s why she isn’t _here_!” Lithuania spat.

 _At home, with her family and her mother who’s_ dying _; Dievas, why; WHY-_

“She’s spending her Christmas in _New York_!”

 _-A whole ocean away- what if something_ happens _to her-_

“With her _‘husband’_.”

 _-What if she doesn’t_ tell _me? What if I’m not_ there?

“She _loves_ him!” his son protested angrily.

“She’d barely even _met_ him! Marriage is a _lifelong commitment-_ ”

 _Prašome, Dievo, let my Tasha_ live, _I promised I’d love her forever, I don’t_ care _if she’s always running after Russia-_

“ _Like that means anything to you!_ ” Pavel yelled.

The whole room went deathly quiet.

* * *

 

“Excuse _me._ ”

Pavel glared at him.

“You were married to _Feliks;_ you were married to _Maci_ ; and you could end up married to _anyone_ tomorrow! And it won’t matter _one bit_ , because in a century or two it’ll all _fall apart_ and you’ll _‘move on’_ and forget _all_ about it, because suddenly it isn’t _convenient_ anymore, because it’s all just _politics_ in the _first_ place; and you’ll be _alone_ by then because Roz and I will be _dead_ and you should be _damn happy_ that _she has something wonderful that you never will!_ ”

Silence.

“I _did_ have it once, Pavel,” Toris managed to force out. It came in a weak whisper, but it was _something_ -

 _Once._ He’d said _‘once’_.

 _Tasha. Tasha Tasha Tasha, I_ love _you, I’m_ so _sorry our lives are this messed up, I wish we could fix it, I wish we had some sort of_ control, _why can’t our children see what a_ gift _they have-_

Pavel slammed his chair under the table and started to storm out of the room.

“And I’m _not_ going to become a politician because _you_ just want someone to get elected that will make you feel like you actually have some fucking _say_ in your life!”

“ _Pavel-!_ ”

He _needed_ someone, he needed them to _understand;_ _America_ was best friends with _his_ bosses and _they_ treated _him_ well enough, how come _he_ couldn’t have something like that, why couldn’t _Belarus_ have had-

“ _Go to Hell!”_ Pavel screamed back at the top of his lungs, footsteps banging on the stairs. _“May as well get there early, because that’s where you’ll end up anyway!”_

A door slammed shut and two seconds later Lithuania was running out of the room as well, he couldn’t bear seeing the faces of the people he’d known and suffered with for so long and the humans who’d never really understand just how important and special they were, and how much difference they could make if only they’d _try,_ and he burst through the back kitchen entrance and into his back yard.

And Toris stood out in the December snow and cried, tears freezing to his face.

**Author's Note:**

> Senka- Montenegro  
> Ráfi- Lappland  
> Babora- Czech Republic
> 
> Ak Dievs, Ak Dievs, Ak Dievs- Viņš ir šeit, viņi šeit- (Latvian): Oh God, Oh God, Oh God- They're here, he's here-  
> Jedan, dva, tri! (Montenegrin): One, two, three!  
> Paldies (Latvian): Thanks  
> Meilė (Lithuanian): Love  
> Sestra (Ukrainian): Sister  
> Njama (Belarussian): No  
> ty Rosjanin wieprz (Polish): You Russian pig  
> Ljubimyj (Russian): Darling  
> Tėvas (Lithuanian): Father  
> Ó minn Guð (Icelandic): Oh my God  
> Dievas (Lithuania): God  
> Prašome, Dievo (Lithuanian): Please, God  
> Maci (Belarusian): Mother
> 
> Podgorica is the capital of Montenegro.  
> Poland's siblings are the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Prague is the capital of the Czech Republic.  
> Strange (in Hetalia terms) but true: Estonians are Finnic, and the original Prussians were Baltic, before they were Germanized and/or slaughtered.  
> The last dictator in Europe is Belarus's Alexandr Lukashenko. He's pretty crazy, and has been essentially banned from the UN, EU, and most of Europe. Nobody wants to deal with this guy.  
> Kateryna is the Ukrainian form of the Russian Yekaterine. Both have the diminutive 'Katyusha'.  
> Tasha is short for Natasha, of course; which is just the diminutive form of Natalya.  
> Alexei is Lukashenko again.  
> The Union State is more of a theoretical thing than an actual thing at the moment, as far as I can tell; but I figure that if it ever does become an actual Thing (as it has here) that Belarus the Nation would get the worst of it.  
> Paweł is the Polish form of Pavel.


End file.
